The country’s second ‘Paper Picnic’ has been held in the Podium Garden at Sheffield Children’s Hospital as the digitally progressive Trust moves towards reducing its reliance on paper even further.

A UK first, the Paper Picnic is the first stage in the Visualise, Optimise, and Digitise (VOD) programme, which was recently launched by System C Healthcare, one of the NHS Trust’s digital transformation partners. VOD helps Trusts to identify and digitise their patient records. The aim of the Paper Picnic is to discover all paper documents being used when caring for a patient in the Trust.

Almost 300 paper files were brought to the Paper Picnic at Sheffield Children’s, by more than 200 clinical staff from throughout the hospital, including nurses from the oncology and radiology wards, as well as physiotherapists, phlebotomosits, the play team and many others. After being recorded and categorised, the documents were laid out on the floor, in the style of a picnic blanket, to prompt discussion and so that attendees could get a full sense of the types of paper files currently being used.

Following the Paper Picnic event, workshops will be held at Sheffield Children’s to review the documents identified in the ‘Visualise’ stage. Duplicate and unnecessary documents will be removed to ensure that what is left is fit to go into a digital format. The final phase is to digitise the process, so the unnecessary tasks can be performed on mobile or desktop devices and at the point of care.

Kevin Connolly, Chief Information Officer at Sheffield Children’s NHS Foundation Trust, said:

The Paper Picnic and other stages of the VOD programme are wonderful examples of the co-creation principles that we embrace here at Sheffield Children’s. It has helped us make digitisation engaging, relevant and accessible, and it highlights the multi-disciplinary nature of our organisation. I’m really pleased with how the day has gone, and I’m looking forward to the next stage.

Other comments included:

Cutting down on the amount of paper would have a hugely positive impact on our work and patient care. It’s great to see so much progress being made, it’s very exciting. Sarah Launt, Radiology Nurse. 

The Paper Picnic has been a successful event with mass engagement across all different areas of the Trust. Cutting down on paper files will help us move forwards with our digitisation journey. At the end of the day, it will benefit patients by saving time and reducing the frustration caused by duplicate documents. Lisa Gregory, EPMA Nurse.

Sheffield Children’s is committed to its digital journey, to achieving HIMSS Level 5 by 2025, and to the wider agenda of the NHS Long Term Plan.

The VOD model, and the Paper Picnic were originally developed by System C Healthcare and Dione Rogers, currently Deputy Chief Nurse/Chief Nursing Informatics Officer at Barking, Havering, and Redbridge University Hospitals. VOD was officially launched in 2021, when the first Paper Picnic event was held at Kettering General Hospital NHS Foundation Trust.

Paper Picnic attendees, including Sheffield Children’s NHS Foundation Trust CEO, Ruth Brown, and representatives from System C.

The resulting ‘picnic blanket’ at the end of the Paper Picnic, comprising of almost 300 paper documents that will be assessed as part of the next stage.